P s 

R92FT 



l^Ui 





FRANCISCA REINA 

AND OTHER POEMS: by 

AMEUA WOODWARD TRUESDELL 




•I 




Class SLMc^ 

Book -Iff I r/ 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 




Frances MacCulloch 



FRANCTSCA REINA 

AM) OTHER POEMS: by 

AMELIA WOODWARD TRUESDELL 

VIEW FYIOM 

'I^HK AYJPPjSiSW^f-E OF 

A CALIFORNIA PILCatliB6IM*i) Hdi.LALIFORNIA MISSIONS' 

"THE SOUL'S RUBAIYAT" 

ETC. 



t 



The losses which lT»ve made iis hrothers; 
The sufferings, our own and others'. 

The wrecking of a life's long toil. 
l-,et us forg-et. 
Lest we g-row hard and unforgiving. 
Lest we lose that great joy of living — 

The might to wrest from out the soil 
The wealth that is our rightful spoil - 
Let us forget. 



SAN FRANCISCO 
A. M. ROBERTSON 

1912 



i/iOa4 waiY 




FRANCISCA REINA 

AND OTHER POEMS: BY 

AMELIA WOODWARD TRUESDELL 



AUTHOR OP 

" LA PARRA GRANDE " 

A CALIFORNIA PILGRIMAGE TO THE CALIFORNIA MISSIONS' 

"THE SOUL'S RUBAIYAT" 

ETC. 



$ 



SAN FRANCISCO 
A. M. ROBERTSON 

1912 



Copyrighted, 1911 

BY 

Amelia Woodward Truesdell 



\ 



Printed by 

Taylor, Nash & Taylor 

San Francisco 



^/ 



ft\- 



©CI.A305146 



Note 

Three of the poems in this book are re- 
printed from the author's Francisca Eeina 
(Boston: 1908); two others have been 
taken from the author's A California Pil- 
grimage Among the Old Missions (San Fran- 
cisco: 1884). Several of the poems have 
appeared in the daily newspapers of San 
Francisco and other cities, and in the stu- 
dent publications of the Leland Stanford 
Jr. University. Acknowledgments are also 
due to the Overland Monthly. 



[V] 

Contents 

Songs of the Pacific — Page 

Francisca Eeina 3 

Francisca's Thanksgiving 5 

Let Us Forget . 7 

California's Hymn 8 

The California Eschseholtzia 9 

A Stanford Hymn 10 

A Consecration for a Non-Sectarian Church . . 11 

The Song of the Colorado River 12 

The Spirit of the Desert 14 

La Casa Grande 15 

The Pacific 16 

The Yukon ^s Song of the Gold — 

The Yukon's Song of the Gold 21 

The Malamute Dog of Alaska — 

The Malamute Dog of Alaska 25 

Tunes of War — 

The Salute of the ' ' Immortalite " .... 29 

Dewey in Waiting 32 

Decoration Day 33 

Espana Dolorosa 34 

''Remembered" 36 

The Glory of "The White Man's Burden" ... 37 

Victoria Regina 39 

Labor, the Prophet 40 

The Spirit to the Spoilers 41 

Songs by the Way — 

The Procession of the Dumb 45 

At Pompeii . . . . , 48 

Sonnet 49 



[vi] 



Songs by the Way — Continued. Page 

Palestine 50 

The Aspen 51 

God of the Human Heart 52 

The Bronze Buddha 54 

A Nubian Lion 55 

Sonnet 57 

The Song of a Christian Sojourner in America in the 

Twentieth Century 58 

To ^'H. H." 59 

To a Friendly Critic 60 

Heart of a Eose . 61 

Sent With Eegrets 62 

A Choice 63 

Grievance 64 

''Men Kiss and Eide Away'' 65 

The Child in the Heart 66 

''Love May Not Sing Again" 67 

If Love Were All 68 

Love Is Dead 69 

Dead Love 70 

Truth 71 

Truth 72 

Vita Brevis 73 

Love's Divination 74 

De Profundis 75 

The Gift 77 

Sleep 78 

Peace 79 

Easter , 80 

The Call .......... 81 

Transition 82 

Stabat Mater 83 

The Mater Pla 85 



[vii] 



Songs by the Way — Continued. Page 

The First Christmas ^^ 

Love Is Saved .87 

Farther Shores ^^ 

In Bondage ^^ 

The Waiting Note .... 90 



A Eustic Bridge ^^ 

QO 

Vespers 

L 'Envoi ^^ 



The Jongleur's Pranks — 

Yankee Doodle Up-to-Date 97 

Unc' Eastus to Marse Dewey 101 

The Lady Eeconciled 1^^ 

An Old Bachelor 104 

A Spinster 105 

My Soul and I ,.....•• 106 

A Grizzly in the Zoo 108 

A Bilious Day ....•• = • 109 

Triolet ^^^ 

Eondeau m 

Why? 112 

The Discarded Lover . H^ 

The Mess Of It . . . • • ■ • • H^ 

Progressive Love H^ 

The Call of Science 116 

Psychology Five ....■■• H^ 

A Pre-Adamite on Evolution 119 

Concerning Hoes 1^^ 



Songs of the Pacific 



[3] 
Francisca Reina 

A stricken queen, but still a queen of queens, 

She sat upon the sloping of her hills 

Where wreck and fire had danced the dance of death. 

Her forehead bowed upon her knees she sat, 
An instant stunned by her transcendant woe. 
The smoke still burnt her eyelids, and her throat 
Quivered with pungent acids of the flame. 
The acrid vapors of the steaming muck 
Were in her nostrils, and her slackened breath 
Was spent through ashes on her bleeding lips. 

A while all paralj^zed, then slow her head 
Upraised. Her eyes were dim. She saw through 

mists 
The vista of her hills all gray and still. 
When would they laugh again ? Ten thousand homes 
Had burnt their hearthstones into monuments 
For her as dead. That cup unveiled she saw 
Which fate has ready for the desolate. 
The black wine of despair each hour new pressed 
From envy of the nether gods. This cup. 
Scorned lightly in her pride, he thrust at her 
With coward jeers: ''Drink, drink, thou boastful 

dame. 
Dost mock it now? There's nothing more for thee." 
Once glance! The vision came! Her spirit's light 
Broke forth in aureole about her head — 
Glory immortal of a risen soul. 
Upright she stood. Hot cinders burnt her feet^ 



[4 



She knew it not. With fingers tense, the cup 
She seized and, like one born to her own house, 
That black wine of despair she tossed aloft 
Upon the embers and the blistering rocks. 

* ' 'Tis not for me, a queen, this dastard draught. 
For lo! They come — my children from the sea 
Of fire — each man a king. Their garments smoke. 
Their brows deep seamed, but bright with hope. Their 

eyes 
Are brave, their faces set to conquer death. 
My sons ! My sons ! ' ' With touch of its old joy 
Her voice rang out among the blackened tombs. 
* ' Come near, ye bruised ones. Unflinching hearts, 
Together make we sacrificial vows 
With orisons unto the rising sun." 



[5] 
Francisca's Thanksgiving 

"When the hordes of barbarian Persians 
Laid the beauty of Athens in waste, 
With her sons came their women and children 
Making vows to the gods, and in haste 
Bearing stones for the walls and the turrets, 
Till a city arose at whose shrine 
The centuries kneeled in unlading 
Their argosies' purple and wine. 
Then JEschylus, reading his vision, 
Sang the song of the city's new morn; 
Myron felt for the soul of the marble 
Which in Phidias later was born. 

By a power more dread than an army 

Destruction has come to our gates, 

And it struck with a terror and blindness 

Which tossed us like toys of the Fates. 

But give thanks that man's greatest is left us. 

The strength and the courage to do, 

A purpose as grim as our fathers' 

Who builded good cities and true. 

Give thanks for the grain's golden harvest. 

Sun-garner of wind-rippled fields ; 

For the opened storehouse of the mountains 

Where each year its new treasure up-yields. 

True children of Argonauts are we 
And our struggles to theirs are akin; 
Though the trials be hosts like the Persians, 
An Athenian valor shall win. 



[6] 



Then Art shall arise from the ashes 
An immortal unhurt by her scars; 
And a voice shall be heard in the ruins 
With a song that shall quicken the stars. 
As with vows, the builders of Athens 
Made a shrine of each wall they upraised, 
So may we make our city a temple 
To the God whom our fathers have praised. 

Then spread we the feast of Thanksgiving 
With a hymn for the days of old; 
Cheers shall ring for the arduous Present 
And the triumphs the Future shall hold. 



[7] 

Let Us Forget 

The horror which surpassed all telling ; 
The memories still welling, welling, 

— Exhaustless fountain of our pain — 

Let us forget. 
The nights that made us gray ere mornings, 
The desolation of those dawnings, 

Whose like, no suns of fire-red stain 
Had seen before nor may again, 
Let us forget. 

The losses which have made us brothers; 
The sufferings, our own and others'. 

The wrecking of a life's long toil. 
Let us forget. 
Lest we grow hard and unforgiving, 
Lest we lose that great joy of living — 

The might to wrest from out the soil 
The wealth that is our rightful spoil — 
Let us forget. 

Lest we get low and weary-hearted 
Thinking of old and new thus parted 

— A gulf whose bridge is hope alone — 

Let us forget. 
Let us look onward to the morrows; 
As monuments o'er buried sorrows 

Piling the best the world has known 
Of iron strength and carven stone, 

Let us forget; 
Lord God! Help us forget. 



[8] 

California's Hymn 

Before us lie the seas which bring the east unto the 

west; 
The oriental Sphinx has bared the secrets of her 

breast, 
And calls on us for answer to her riddles all unguessed 
Since stars went rolling on. 

Half-blinded with the gold dust from our smitten 

mountain coves, 
For years we wandered dreaming in our fig and 

orange groves, 
While the placers of our wheat fields gleamed with 

golden treasure-troves 

And we went gaily on. 

Garden-valleyed are our hillsides — softest hand that 
gloves the steel — 

But the will is rock beneath them for our country's 
righteous weal; 

Our heritage of birthright we will guard with death- 
less zeal. 

As the peoples go marching on. 

For our children's souls shall answer with a spark 

of holy fire 
When smitten on the anvil of a pure and bold desire. 
Till the blows become the key-note of the world's 

advancing choir. 

As the future goes marching on. 



[9] 
The California Eschscholtzia 

The orange hue of the rainbow 

Is not so deep as thine; 
More rich than a golden goblet 

Influshing with sun-lit wine. 

On its calyx of pink thy corolla 

Catches sheen from the passing sun, 

As if powder of pearls were dusted 
And gleamed thy soft gold upon. 

Of a truth, the dainty fay-maidens 
Must have crimped thine edge so thin 

Alike to some fairy-land pattern, 
On thy stamen for golden pin. 

Deep down in the cup of thy petals 
One spot of a purple stain. 

Where the elves forgot in their revels 
The last bright drop to drain. 

As the scintillant dust of amber 
In the sun does thy pollen shine ; 

Such powder Queen Mab might covet 
To burnish her locks divine. 

At dusk thou modestly closest 
Thy petals with jealous fold ; 

All night thou cosily sleepest 
In a tent of the cloth of goli. 



[10] 
A Stanford Hymn* 

Against the night, the skies disclose 
Their beauty shadow-fraught; 

From out the night, a star arose; 
Through sorrow, gleamed a thought. 

But for the grief which sat by death, 
And dreamed its dream alone, 

Our Alma ne'er had felt God's breath 
Turning to life the stone, — 

God's breath of love, to purpose warm 

Transmuting human loss; 
Kevealing life's ideal form 

To those beneath the cross. 

O Stanford, look unto the height! 

Athene-like, thy youth! 
Led by thy star, seek thou thy might 

In time's advancinor truth! 



♦Written for the Stanford Annual, THE QUAD, 1904. 



[11] 

A Consecration for a Non-Sectarian 
Church* 

Before this new-made altar, Lord, 

Passions and cavilings we lay, 

All prejudices which would stay 

Our spirits from a sweet accord 

With love, — that love which wrought man's good. 

Not in the controversial creeds, 

But shone, by serving daily needs, 

Divine in human brotherhood. 

sweet home-love! This love divine. 
Interpreting with sorrow's art. 
How hast thou, on a broken heart, 
Up reared the spirit's sacred shrine, 
That other souls may reach the height 
Of temples builded without hand. 
Wherein eternal law shall stand. 
And God himself shall be the liorht. 



*At the dedication of the Memorial Church, Stanford 
University, January 25, 1903. 



[12] 

The Song of the Colorado River* 

To my own again in the Salton Sea, 

As the Indian sagas of old have said, 
When times and a time of my exile shall be, 

I will leap again from my rock-bound bed. 

For ages that deep dry sea was mine, 
For me she unbarred her ocean gates; 

And forever my sea shells and corallines shine 
On her brow, uncrowned by the envious fates. 

How that land was fair when I lay on her breast 
With verbenas aflame and green with the palms ; 

Ten thousand ages of beauty and rest 
In the glow of her bloom and her passionate charms. 

But a jealous Titan earthward bent, 

And the rocks he smote both far and wide; 

I slipped from her arms through the mountain rent ; 
Ah, then on her forehead the garlands died. 

For aeons she lay with her sands unsought; 

I was chafing and bound in my narrow bed: 
But the times and a time their days have wrought. 

And I come again as the sagas have said. 



13] 



Though again I be bound I will come from afar, 
To the sea and the land of my heart's desire; 

My gates of rock I will thrust ajar, 

For the Indian sagas are written in fire. 



*The Indians of the South have a tradition that the 
Colorado River first went througli the Indio basin to the 
Gulf, and that the miles of desert which now lie so far below 
the sea level were lake and that the whole country was most 
fertile and had a mild climate. They also have a legend that 
the river will surely return to its old bed from which it was 
turned by a comparatively recent convulsion of nature. When 
the late break in the banks of the Colorado made the Salton 
Sea, there was great rejoicing among them, since, according 
to the legend, the return presaged great benefit to the natives. 



[14] 
The Spirit of the Desert 

An Indian rides across the plain; 

And crushed beneath his pony's tread 
The alkali's white crystals shine; 

Red wheels the sun high overhead. 

Stolid of face and sombre-eyed; 

His mustang's bridle trails aground; 
The sullen lassitude of heat, 

Of smothering light, enfolds them round. 

Hot hazes rise; in shimmering veil, 
The panting breath of parched earth, 

Their silhouette grows dim ; a speck 
They fade into the desert-dearth. 



[15] 

La Casa Grande 

On the Gila's sun-burnt plain 
Where naught but the mesquit grows, 
And the fevered breath of the sullen simoon 
From off the desert blows ; 

Where the earth's dry lips are athirst 
And the Gila monsters crawl, 
Stands a house of adobe alone and despoiled 
By the years which scatter all. 

The Indian as wrinkled and sere 
As the leaf that rustles aground, 
Has no legend-torch its grey depth to light, 
And echo can find no sound. 

No house of its kin on the plain; 
Life refuses its brotherhood now; 
Even Death has laid a reluctant hand 
On La Casa Grande's brow. 



[16] 
The Pacific 

The monarch of waters! the giant Pacific! 

How dwells he forever in kingly estate! 
One mighty hand grasping the Orient hoary, 

The other wide-spanning the Golden Gate! 
Far beyond the white cliffs of Thor and of Odin 

The centuries' snows are a crown for his head; 
Borealis, his torch-bearer, lights his state chambers, 

And the icebergs their flame-tinted canopies 
spread. 

To his warm heart he presses his bride with her 
graces. 
Low responses she gives through her forests' deep 
chimes 
To his wooing, in softest tide-cadences uttered. 
While their love-tale the minstrel wind bears to all 
climes. 
High lifts she aloft the gigantic Sequoia, 

To catch on her brow the smile of his face; 
And the moons that are whitest and the suns that are 
clearest 
For ages have looked on their loving embrace. 

California, bride of the princely Pacific! 

All proudly we gaze on the stores that are thine; 
Not the gold that was torn from thy breast with thy 
crying. 
But a greater boon ask from thy treasures' deep 
mine — 



[17] 



E 'en a throb from thy life when thy soul was awaking, 

When the darkness was smitten ere dawned had the 

day; 

"When the light of the cross with the sabre's flash 

mingled, 

And the chaos of change in thy morn rolled away. 



The Yukon's Song of the Gold 



[21] 

The Yukon's Song of the Gold 

Lo! We are the waters that come from afar, 
From the heart of the earth so young, so old. 
Whose life-blood flows from the granite and spar, — 
The heart that lies under the northern star; 
And we bring you the song of the ancient gold, 
The waters' song of the gold. 

In the cavern-retorts of the master-smith Time, 
It seethed in the heat and crumbled in cold; 
When the forests uplifted their giant prime 
And the saurians trailed through the ooze and slime, 
He still was annealing the molten gold, 
The unsunned and the nameless gold. 

Ere Thor was a thought or Odin spoke, 
The gleaming quartz into billows rolled; 
Then eternal silence in echoes awoke. 
When the billows uplifted to crags and broke 
In the terrible song of the crashing gold. 
The song of the grinding gold. 

We scraped it down with the glaciers' might 
From cranny and crevice of mountain fold; 
When the altar-flame of Auroral light 
To a temple had turned the Arctic night, 
Then the ether throbbed with our chant of the gold. 
The psalm of our votive gold. 

In the ice-dark caves our soul was stirred 
As men called for our help in the canon 's hold ; 
Deep under the glaciers our name we heard, 



[22 



In the secret springs we leaped at the word; 
We shouted and sung the wild song of the gold, 
The song of our waiting gold. 

From the benches' wash in the river-sluice 
A primitive man scooped the shining mould; 
But our pebbles have taught you the riffles' use; 
Rejoicing, we make you a play-day truce 
To hunt from your sluice-box toys the gold, 
Your trifle of captured gold. 

Our strength we chain to their narrow bound. 
But we scoff when you say we are bought and sold; 
With a plunge and a flash, far below we are found 
In the river our home; and the hills resound 
With our fetterless song while you sweep up the gold, 
While you gloat on the virgin gold. 

When the pick on the river's bank is still 
And men come not to the snow-lapped wold. 
Then our song that was loosed at the primal thrill 
Of chaos pulsed with the infinite Will, 
Shall ring as at first through canons of gold, 
The canons of unsought gold. 



The Malamute Dog of Alaska 



[25] 

The Malamute Dog of Alaska 

Thou, ruler and slave of the frozen plain! 
Thou, Malamute dog with the voice of pain ! 
Is it thine or a spirit's, that demon howl. 
That snap and snarl, and whimpering growl 
Which chills like the curse of the slain? 

Thou wolf -faced thing with the jaws of steel 
And the fangs that the blood-red lips reveal; 
With appealing eyes which seem to entreat; 
With thy thieving heart, and thy patient feet 
For the trail where the snows congeal! 

Thou wonder of blended good and ill! 
What gives to thy tones that human thrill? 
For war on the gods, condemned to thy form 
Do vikings and dwarfs in the Arctic storm 
Purgatorial penance fulfill? 

Strange creature! Thy cry on the northern night 
Wails forth beneath the Auroral light. 
As if earth heard again the wild shriek of her woe 
When Odin's life-blood stained the halls of snow, 
The snow-halls on Valhalla's height. 



Tunes of War 



[29] 

The Salute of the ^^ Immortalite " 

(Manila Bay, August 12, 1898.) 

The coming dawn flung out her pennants grey 
Above Manila, where, like baffled tigers hid. 
Lay crouched the war ships of the children of the Cid, 
While Dewey's fleet held Europe's wolves at bay. 

The morning, with her sudden orient hand, 

A shower of sunbursts cast where brooding seas 

Crooned softly to the shore. 

The waiting land 

Looked up in dread if yet the breeze 

Were laden with the war-blasts roar; 

Looked toward our fleet of spars 

With stripes of fire sun-trimmed and burning stars. 

The armed silence of our flag defiance hurled, 

Where from the Olympia's peak its bannered fold, 

Unbound upon aerial waves of gold, 

Flung out its daring message to the world, — 

Our final word, the lifted rod of power. 

Spain ! hast thou the prescience of thy fateful hour ? 

These tides upbore the English prows of steel ; 
Far off the scowling Kaiser turned his keel; 
Mikado's sun flushed red before the Russian's frown. 
While they whose sires had scoffed at Louis' ancient 

dower 
In haste before the Czar bent down. 



[30 



Still hunt of kings upon Manila's bay! 

A muffled danger breathed upon the main. 

Eeady to spring our ocean bloodhounds lay. 

The Lion! Did he proclaim a strange or friendly 

land 
When toward Cavite swept his proud command? 
The Nations' sentries jostled in the strain. 
Aghast the Eagle and the Bear that day! 

From out the British prows in open view 

The Immortalite came forth alone — 

The Lion's flag-ship by its legends known, 

Two crosses blazed upon a field of blue; 

With storied symbol of its power unfurled, 

Our ships it faced in presence of a world. 

crucial hour ! Was the Olympia now to meet 

The standard of a hostile or a friendly fleet? 

Britannia's ship with signal flags bedight, 

Passed down our opened lines. 

At full salute, she toward our flag-ship swung 

Before the array of royal battle signs. 

Agape and hushed, the nations at the sight! 

Then from the English deck out-rung 

Our country's anthem, which the winds bore wide 

To jealous kings across the listening tide. 

Ye lands, upon the eve of battle stayed, 

Under all Europe's hungry guns 

It was our own Star Spangled Banner flung 

A-breeze by Briton's sons, 

Beneath Saints George and Andrew's shade: 



31 



Her child-republic's place acknowledged to the 

world 
On this portentous day by Albion's flag unfurled. 

Outbursting from those flag-ships twain, a cry 

Woke all the dreaming hazes in reply. 

With brow uncovered our Commander stood 

Beneath Old Glory's loosened fold, 

Amidst his staff of loyal brotherhood. 

Then from the Olympia burst that paean loved of old, 

''God Save the Queen". No men that bide 

Upon the seas have ever poured a nation's pride 

Through brazen horns so triumph filled 

As those glad trumpets which that day out-cast 

A mother's hymn beneath a daughter's mast. 

The watching squadrons with forebodings thrilled. 

Across the waves the stormy Prussian frowned; 
Looked forth the crouching Bear, 
Scowling at him whose flowery islands rise 
Where Fujiyama's snows are ever fair. 
And they of France, in dumb surprise 
They looked for him, the man they found 
When Dewey's flag above Manila's gate 
Untangled yet another knot of fate. 

England! 'tis for deeds like this, to thee 

Our hearts are turned. Across the wrathful years 

Thy offered hand: the rancor and the tears 

Forgotten in the blessing which shall be 

When side by side those brother flags are furled. 

Till Anglo-Saxon peace shall lead the world. 



[32] 

Dewey in Waiting 

(Manila, May 1 - August 13, 1898.) 

God of our fathers! guard his ways 
Who bore the strain through many days; 
Who held within a single hand 
The honor of his native land; 
Whose ward ceased not with tropic light, 
Whose thoughts engarrisoned the night, 
Whose vigilance forestalled the dawn 
And still patrolled each unknown morn; 
Who stood alone and unafraid. 
And the aggressive nations stayed 
With tact more potent than the might 
That took an empire in a night. 
What but the hollow of Thy hand 
O'ershadowed him in that far land. 
When error meant a name defamed, 
Imperiled cause, a country shamed? 



[33] 

Decoration Day 

There are graves on many hill-sides, 
White stones in shining rows, 

Where half a hundred winters 
Have spread their velvet snows. 

To each the Springtime priestess 
Her Paschal flowers will bear; 

Each Summer's offered incense 
Will breathe a people's prayer. 

Over seas in tropic jungles 

Of Cuba and Luzon, 
The tangled thickets cover 

What mothers called their own. 

But snows shall never whiten 

The graves wide scattered there; 

Above them alien blossoms 
Their censers swing in air. 



[34] 
Espana Dolorosa 

There were tears in Andalusia, 

There was wailing in Castile, 
Leon was dark with sorrow, 

In Aragon the peal 
Of dirge funereal sounded ; 

For now the flag of Spain, 
From four hundred years of waving, 

Would never rise again 
Where the Pearl of the Antilles 

Makes the isle of sweet delights. 
On the Carribean waters 

And Morro's battled heights. 

For the Seilor Castellanos 

With no sceptre in his hand, 
Gave the keys of power ancestral 

To a hated victor land, 
From the Palace of Havana, 

Where crime had had its sway; 
Where the sins of generations 

Bow the shoulders of to-day. 

He looked not back in weakness 

With a quiver for the past. 
Nor upward to the turret 

Where an alien flag was cast. 
One cried, ^'Espana viva!'' — 

His heart shook with surprise; 
They saw one sudden tremor, 

One unbrushed tear drop rise; 
But he trod the marble stairway 



[35 



With a martial step and bold, 
Left the palace of Havana 
With its secrets all untold. 

Ah, woe to thee, Granada! 

Thy sins are at thy door; 
The suffering of the ages 

Returns to thy own shore. 
Hist! thy children's ''Miserere,"— 

It is history's fate- wrung chimes, 
And the blood-sweat of their foreheads 

Is the dripping of thy crimes. 

Ah, woe is thee, Alhama! 

The blood-stain still is there; 
Haste, haste to purge thy spirit 

With penance and with prayer! 

Ai, Espana! read the writing 
Of the hand upon the wall; 

Ai, Espana Dolorosa! 

Beware lest worse befall! 



[36] 
"^^ Remembered " 

(Havana, January 1, 1899.) 

Three Jackies went rowing far out in the bay, 
Far out in the bay when the sun was high; 

And those laddies — they did a deed that day 

Which should make them beloved forever and aye. 

For they placed our flag on the wave-washed wreck, 
On the wave-washed wreck of the storied Maine; 

Those Jackies, they climbed on the rocking deck 
To flaunt that flag in the face of Spain. 

They swung it high over davit and beams. 

Over davit and beams for the love of her name. 

And for love of the lads, who from sleep and dreams. 
Went to dreamless sleep and unconscious fame. 

And it waved beneath the Morro's height. 

The Morro 's height in Havana bay ; 
Not a Spaniard looked on the daring sight, 

But thought of another winter's day; 

Of a salient day not a year agone. 

Not a year agone, but oh! for the change! 

A kingdom lost and a nation born, 

And Columbia's flag with an ocean range. 

Then ho ! for the lads who rowed out in the bay, 
Rode out in the bay with the stripes and stars; 

Bless God for the thought in their hearts that day, 
The brave true hearts of the jolty tars. 



[37] 
The Glory of ''The White Man's Burden" 

{With acknowledgments to Rudyard Kipling.) 

Aye, take ''The White Man's Burden," 

And glory in the place 
Mutations of strange peoples 

Have thrust upon your race. 
Reck not the price it costs you, 

Though it be the "best ye breed," 
For Freedom is no phantasm, 

Nor Liberty mere creed. 

Strong in your might of master, 

Strong in your brawn and pride. 
Ye have the hand unflinching 

''In patience to abide." 
Cleave prison walls of darkness. 

The former centuries' dower; 
Let in the light of knowledge. 

Though blows seem cruel power. 

Despair not of the burden; 

God's prophet felt the stress, 
The murmurs of weak Israel 

Still in the wilderness. 
The promised land's true blessing 

Those "fluttered folk" shall know, 
"When they behold their country 

To nobler measure grow. 

Accept "The White Man's Burden" 

As duty's master-stroke; 
The freeman's high ideal 



[38] 



''Your weariness shall cloak." 
And future years shall show it 

To those who give you jeers, 
There is a verdict higher 

Than ''The judgment of your peers. 

Rich generations gave you 

The brain to think and plan ; 
Grudge not the aeons' blessings 

To this "child-devil" man. 
Hold fast "The White Man's Burden," 

Though grudged the patriot's meed; 
For Freedom is no phantasm, 

Nor Liberty mere creed. 



[39] 
Victoria Regina 

The earth is full of tears. "The Queen is dead!" 
Ye men, with crepe upon your king's array, 
Why make ye pageant over weary clay? 

If ye have loved her, do the things she said. 

She rests from strifes which broke her heart at last; 

That heart — in love with peace — stunned by the 
roar 

Which crashed upon the Imperial Island's shore; 
She sees God's purpose now, with view more vast. 

Sing hallelujah! Let the requiems cease! 
As angels are, all young of form and fair, 
So she, to-day; half wondering to be where 

War blazons not, and life abides in peace. 

Tear off the purple bands! Cast them away! 

Hushed is love's parting sob — the years' refrain. 

She who was widowed, wslWis in white again; 
Stain not with grief your Lady's nuptial day. 

Ye passing bells, a Jubilate ring! 

Sound, bugles, sound! Ye heralds, cry the hour! 

Your Queen approaches now the Gracious Power, 
Eeceived into the Presence of The King:. 



[40] 
Labor, the Prophet 

I am grim Labor, I who boldly stand 

And over God's brown acres raise my hand. 

Tyrants, ye heard the marching of my feet 

Down through all time towards the oppressor's seat; 

Ye tremble when before your face I raise 

My hands all grimy with the forge's blaze. 

My heralds shout upon the hills afar; 
The firmament is shaken by the star 
Of despots hurled from heaven into the sea. 
No longer shall the winds of vengeance be 
Held back by angels lest they hurt the earth ; 
The vials are full, — the hour is come to birth. 

Masters, ye shudder at the nearing roar 
Of angry waves that break upon your shore. 
Each drop of that tumultuous sea is mine. 
Behold, that sea reflects the face divine! 
The people are the sea; athwart your path 
They surge before God's tidal breath of wrath. 

Across the raging of the storm I hear 
The angels of the new life coming near; 
Their trumpets sound above the tempest's roar: 
''The toilers' bands are loosed f orevermore. " 
And I, grim Labor, I shall wear the crown 
Which kings and priests in terror will cast down. 



[41] 
The Spirit to the Spoilers 

Spoilers of men, beware the dawning hour; 

Heed ye the shapes that haunt your dreams of power. 

The ghosts of centuries of wrong arise, 

Their oriflammes of death before your eyes. 

They point with ghastly fingers to your brows of 

Cain; 
They cry, ''Behold the earth-encumbering heaps of 

slain." 

And who are these? These dead that gape unto the 

skies ? 
"Was here a battle where men stood with equal 

chance, — 
Fell face to face, each man, his effort like a lance 
Full set to do its honest worst unto his foe? 
See ye the helmet and the sword receive the blow, 
When each one strives alike to wreck or save a life? 
See ye the weapons of an honorable strife? 

Ye traffic princes, monarchs of red gold. 
Beware the fate of kings of old, 
For ye are one with them in sceptred power; 
Forget not years have brought the toilers' hour. 
The centuries accuse ye. But a new one springs 
From God with promise on its wings ! 

Go haste to loose your brothers' bands before 
The sounds of woe are heard within your door. 
The angel of a waiting vengeance stands, 
The golden censer in his lifted hands; 



[42] 



It smokes with fire from off the altar ta'en 
Where ye have cast atoning gems in vain. 
Haste, haste; he flings the censer to the floor 
Of earth; he swears your time shall be no more. 



Songs by the Way 



[45] 
The Procession of the Dumb 

In deep thought-watches with the Night a host 

Passed by; a noiseless host, still souls, 

Each brow enbrand with pain; of thwarted lives, 

A dire processional. "Father of all, 

These too are thine?" 

And thus the prophet Night: 
''Thou watcher by the gates of the unknown. 
Dumb in the strife for immortality 
Thy fellows seek a voice for their mute woe." 
And these passed on and on, the hapless ones 
Ill-shaped from stress of bodies ill-begot; 
In thrall of deathless circumstance, — a crowd 
To whom ideals are but a dream of pain; 
And with them those, dead-lustred of the eye, 
darkest spirits, they who have no dreams. 

Came tearless mourners here, their all in one 

Too dainty bit of clay, or tiny hand 

Up tossing to their arms; supreme of woe. 

That their wide eyes are dry. And I for them 

Must weep the speech of tears? Came lovers cold, 

Who shivered at love's limitations found. 

And they, the worshipful, who saw no God 

Of joy in their unanswering skies. 

O train 
Most pitiful, the artists of unskill! 
The colorist to whom in mockery 
Light's pageantries appear! The sculptor's touch 
Which gives no marble breath; the artisan 
Whose fingers find no thought ! The voiceless songs ! 



[46 



Benumbed of throat and hand, their lyres unstrung, 
The poet souls that know not words' delight, — 
Ah, who shall tell the ecstasy of pain 
That sleeps at last, its songs unsung? 

And lo ! 
A crowd whose likeness men saw not and lived. 
The uncrowned throng of the ambitious, these. 
Who ever for the laurel pluck the bay. 
Who, unanointed with the altar-chrism 
Of genius, yet see visions come and go. 
One bound of foot would walk; one drags a stone; 
Together chained, some rage as galley slaves; 
The palsied limbs would keep apace; the hands 
Close tied would hide a wound; a deathless worm 
One slays in vain. And all make shift to smile. 
flameless candle and the empty dish! 

Thus poverty and tasks unfit and bonds 
Unloved ! Fair tastes denied, and all the train 
Of appetites, of passions, and disease, 
Had left on every brow the unhealed brand 
Of shame or multitudinous sin, — dread stamp 
Of disappointed lives. 

Again the Night: 
' ' Singer from hill-top shrines, the mountain air 
Of life bear in thy sweeping garments down. 
So breath may be in this dead place. Sing thou 
Of growth for all the stultified, — that he, 
Vampire despair, is dead. The souls long blind 



47 



That dwelt in error's darkened house, look forth 

From opened windows to the light. Behold, 

Twin stars dispel low-scudding clouds ! Now shrinks 

Dead fear and shrivels in the dawn. Lo, truth 

And knowledge from their star-dust are as suns! 

A final state the universe has not; 

Nor knows all space the wrecking words 'Too late.' 

''Aye, shout aloud that these earth-appetites, 

Of body born, are not of soul. Yea, cry 

The clarion call thy spirit hears: 'When these 

Clay lanterns of the flesh shall fall away. 

Shall into pieces fall, the smothered fire 

In purer air shall burst to brighter flame 

And burn anew as lit from God's own light.' " 



[48] 

At Pompeii 

In sunless depths of old Pompeian halls, 
In pose of life among the pictured walls 

Were human bodies found, unchanged in mold 
Since Grace was shocked to stillness, meeting Death. 
A ray, a motion of the new life's breath, — 

To dust they fell, a heap of ashes cold. 

Within our hearts are secret crypts which hide 
Grief-forms unchanged through years. They still 
abide 
As things of life, these hopes and dreams long 
dead. 
If but to-day's sharp lights were bravely thrown 
Upon those figures time-enshrined and lone. 

To naught would fall the shapes of sainted dread. 



[49] 
Sonnet 

High in a Roman tower where white doves feed, 
An artist toils alone. The plastic clay 
He molds with living tonch from day to day, 

Till love's own dream of love his fond eyes read. — 

In work-shops bare, the artisans with speed 

Of cunning hands their life-trained chisels ply; 
The model fair before the watchful eye 

They reproduce with earnest, patient heed. 

The Master's life ! Ideal so fair and high 

To grasp, we with the Master's thought must vie. 

The workmen we with rude or skillful hand 

From out the record marble, statues make. 

Alas, if idle blows that beauty break 
Which for eternity and time must stand. 



[50] 

Palestine 

O Land, a-stoop with penitential years, 

Thou tragedy of treason to thy God, 
Where Sons of Allah hold with foot unshod 

The Altar-place of Judah's fruitless tears! 

Moriah's hill! Blood-sacrifice of old 

When David slew on Oman's threshing floor; 

Where Abram's knife was lifted, long before 
The mornings flushed thy temple's dome of gold. 

Thou Zion walls where Jacob's children pray 

Above the vaults which hid a nation's shame! 
Syrian sun, how canst thou bare thy flame? 

Weep, Israel, weep! Alas for Calvary's day! 

Thou Nazareth, we wonder at thy dower. 

Thou Olivet and Lebanon afar. 

Meek Bethlehem that stayed the wandering star, 
We're dumb before the mystery of thy power. 

Gethsemane, with olive twilight dim. 

We stand where Jesus held the cup of woe ; 
We feel the angel forms still come and go 

Among the changeless trees that sheltered Him. 

Garden which saw love's sacriflcial birth 

Where olives, bent with thrice a thousand years 
Still droop above our sacrament of tears, — 

God! to kneel upon the self -same earth! 



[ 51 ] 

The Aspen 

A Legend of Palestine. 

Aspen, why shiver thus in affright? 

Have your leaves from eternal penance no rest? 
Did you bide so long on some eerie quest 
That a terrified, uninvited guest 
On earth you seem? 
Does memory dream 
Of the houris whose eyes were jewels of light? 
Do you tremble in fear or in hidden delight? 
Aspen, why shiver thus in affright? 

O mortal, speak never lightly of me ; 
I stood on Calvary's hillside when 
He was pierced in the side by the Roman men, 
And the high priests scoffed beneath. Since then 
That cruel jeer 
Forever I hear; 
Forever His crimson blood I see; 
Forever no peace to my heart can be ; 
brother, speak never lightly of me. 



[52] 

God of the Human Heart* 

' ' God of the Open Air ! " God of the Human Heart ! 
On heights, though Thou art there, of sorrow Thou art 

part. 
God of the forest arch! God of the altar-flame! 
Beneath the skies or groined roof, Thou art the same 

Be it cathedral choir or swinging bird 

Thou hearest singing in Thy praise, 

They bring unto Thine ear the same sweet word 

From gargoyled tower or copse of bending sprays. 

In busy streets where we are smallest part 
Of currents gushing from the city's heart. 
In dens or gilded crypts of crime, some spark 
Of light I find, — some thought, some hope, some 

mark 
Of thee, illuminating with Thy sweet control 
Some secret impulse of a sin-stained soul. 

In death throes of the hopes that fall 

When we to earth our dreams of service fling, 

In bitterness of joys that pall, 

In fruitless Autumn from a blossoming Spring, — 

Though we be dumb with failures, Thou art there, 

Bringing life-buoyance of the open air. 

In sickness when the pulse is low Avith midnight chill, 
And death-moths flutter round the candle's flare, 



53 



Thou walkest softly on the night, and lo! the thrill 
Of life is in the light which follows where 
Thy footsteps make our dawn, ''God of the Open 
Air." 



♦With acknowledgments to Mr. Henry Van Dyke's poem, 
'God of the Open Air." 



[54] 

The Bronze Buddha 

On the lotus blossom the Buddha is sitting, 

With the cobra's hood on his head; 
The sun and the moon behind him enfigured 

In a bronze of gold and of red. 
For the half of a thousand years he had sat there 

When the Bethlehem hymn was sung; 
To Nirvana's passionless peace he was passing 

When the Christ-Child's anthem rung. 

On his forehead the spot of the chosen immortal, 

Revered as the seal divine; 
Ample-lipped is his mouth, but no human emotion 

Breaks the fullness of curving line. 
And narrow his eyes, but life-shot, and gazing 

With a haunting calm to your own; 
On his lap the folded fingers are lying. 

The labors of man to them unknown. 

And the nerveless type of a dream he embodies, 

The inertia of unpulsed soul; 
But a mystery vast as the years immemorial 

Which into the silence roll. 
And illusions as subtle as orient attars 

Across the lulled senses creep. 
Till my spirit is weighted with aeons and aeons 

Of stillness and dreamless sleep. 



[55] 

A Nubian Lion 

Monarch, dethroned, with eyes where smouldering 

fires 
Seem ever bursting into memory, 
Whose brows are but captivity's despair. 
What tragedy of other life has left 
Such majesty upon thy wrinkled front? 

Why plungest at thy cage? Dost see thy foes, 
Princes who smote thy sires in Babylon 
Or in Persepolis? Thou art avenged; 
Thine ancestors have cast for centuries 
Their moonlight silhouettes upon the floors 
And peristyles of their dead palaces. 

Thou cryest from thy sleep; dost hear in dreams 
The priestess maidens singing by the Nile? 
Does their low chant drive thy dumb being mad 
With memory of life in Philae's groves? 

Whose entity thus paces to and fro ? 

Does Alexander pant for worlds? Thy roar, 

Is it some Caesar's fury at duress? 

In thy dun hide, does he of Marathon 

Brood in thy sullen wrath ? Thy whimpering whine ? 

Is Xerxes weeping still for Salamis? 

Their peoples are as naught — while thou? Thy race 

Is yet the jungle's prince; the desert's king. 

But what is heritage to thee in chains? 
And what to thee is aught save liberty 



[56] 



And the wild smell of hidden lairs, where calls 
Thy lonely mate across the Nubian night? 

Know this, thou prince of Pers or priest of Nile, 
In bondage and revolt thou'rt not alone. 
fellow captive, rest! Perhaps for us. 
For thee and me, may wait still other forms; 
With kings we yet may walk among the stars. 



[57] 
Sonnet 

What owe I to my sister of the poor? 

Or to my brother with blood-dripping hands? 

To him the golden largess of fair lands? 
To her the gauze and girdled gems' allure? 
Or shall I from God's mountain summits pure 

Bend down with pity of His love divine — 

But still as largess from some far off shrine — 
To heal the bruises which to life innure? 

Nay, nay; a brotherhood that knows its own, 
Which passing, calls in no uncertain tone. 
While it extends the even hand of friend, 
''Hail, comrade hail! We fare the self -same way 
Come let us walk together for the day; 
Together we may find the wished-for end." 



[58] 

The Song of a Christian Sojourner 

in America 

in the Twentieth Century* 

If Christ be God, I Him adore; 
If Christ be man, I love Him more; 
God-gotten One of heavenly fame. 
Or Mary's son without a name; 
Messiah, King, or Nazarene, 
To me the same all titles mean; 
Still at His feet my all I lay, 
In life or death, I'm His alway; 
Nor Sin nor Hell shall come between. 



*With acknowledgments to Richard Watson Gilder and his 
poem, "The Song of a Heathen Sojourner in Galilee A. D. 32." 



59 



To"H. H.," 

Helen Hunt Jackson, author of Ramona. 

Her art, though beaten gold it lies, 
Her words atint with nature's dyes, 
Her deepest thought, the under flow 
Of ocean-silences below: 
'Twas not for these we loved her so. 

Not even for the gentle grace 

That followed her in homeward place 

As perfume does a swaying flower; 

Not for her kindness' gracious dower; 

Not for the magic of her glance. 

When beauty's glint made sudden trance; 

Nor her quick ear for nature's cry. 

From ''Hedge-row things" to human sigh; 

Not for her courage in the face 

Of Death, when with a royal grace. 

As kings unto their equals yield 

A sword well worn on worthy field. 

She gave her body to the hand 

Which holds the Maker's last command. 

"How she loved us": her voice we hear. 
"It was for this she was so dear" — 
Her words — a flower upon her bier. 



[60] 
To a Friendly Critic 

Vision so high that I am dazzled in my sight 
With searching for the ether's utmost star 
That was not meant to east its beam so far 

As this small earth-bound range of semi-night! 

Half blind, rejoicing in the awful height, 
For me no lesser sun can ever shine. 
But oh, to reach that height and make it mine 

God ! the beauty of that far-off light ! 

The glimmered splendor of its slender ray 
To twilight dim turns every nearer day; 

When flashes its full glory on my eyes, 

I faint upon the floor of paradise. 
Better than love, better than life, a friend 
Who will not let me choose ignoble end. 



[61] 

Heart of a Rose 
Heart of a Man 

A flurry of snow on the heart of a rose ! 

Ah me ! Who knows 
The chill that can strike to the heart of a rose? 

On the heart of a man, a cruel tone ! 

Hast ever known 
The thrust that can come from a cruel tone? 

To the heart of the rose a sun-ray's gleam! 

A smile's bright beam 
To the heart of a man is a sun-ray's gleam. 



[62] 
Sent with Regrets 

Drink to me with a song, dear friends, 
When lips on love-notes dwell. 
And while the wine with music blends 
Till lovely bosoms swell. 

And when the feast is at its flow 
And hearts are swinging free, 
Then drink with love-light all aglow. 
One sweet good night to me. 



[63] 

A Choice 

An angel stooped down from the hill-side; 

He was holding a golden thread 
All strung with the jewels of promise, 

Just swaying above my head. 

Of love there were blood red rubies, 
And the pearls of peace were there. 

As I reached for the gems in my rashness. 
Spake a voice, "Beware, beware." 

"But one canst thou choose," said the angel. 
Nor again shall I pass this way." 

And I clasped a single treasure; 

But it burnt with a changeless ray. 

In my hand I gathered this jewel 
That blazed beyond all compare; 

And I laughed and I wept as I held it, 
For the heart of a friend lay there. 



[64] 

Grievance 

One time I grieved ; I shivered as in fright 
At cold words spoke by love's usurped right. 
To me all trembling, spake the faithful Night: 
"Why grieve that Love in ardor spake so stern; 
The purest flame may in its white heat burn; 
Not in your wrath, God's noblest blessing spurn.' 



[65] 
''Men Kiss and Ride Away" 

While yet in maidens ' throats the chords are swelling, 

Men ride aAvay. 
"While yet within their hearts the song is welling, 

Men ride away. 

From stirrup-cups with hasty love-foam rimming. 
From lips that pout with kisses still a-brimming. 
Men ride away. 

With love-tones on the riders' lips still ringing. 
Their horses' hoof -notes to the music swinging, 
Men ride away. 

From eyes that woke at love's too tender pleading. 

Men ride away. 
From hearts where love a-faint lies dumb and 
bleeding. 

Men ride away. 



[66] 

The Child in the Heart 

There's a child in my heart that sings and sings, 
' ' O life is love and life is fair ; ' ' 
When my heart has peace and the spirit has wings, 
Then I know that the child is singing there. 

When the restless, midnight vigils I keep, 
And suffer for trifles which pass away, 
I know that the child in my heart is asleep. 
Ah me! Will it wake another day? 

When I fret at the burden of hourly strife, 
I know that the child from my soul has fled. 
Woe is me for the joy that is lost to my life, 
If ever the child in my heart be dead! 



[67] 

''Love May Not Sing Again" 

Love may not sing again! Awake, awake, 

My heart, and one more draught of rapture take ; 

Quaff de^p while to your lip the joy is pressed; 
Drink, drink before the golden bowl shall break. 

It is a god would sup with you to-night; 

Lose not in dreams his forehead's visioned sight. 

Not vain upon your threshold poured his wine, — 
It would to an immortal feast invite. 

Heart awake! Too soon Love's song is passed; 
Too soon his goblet to the ground is cast; 

An instant lost, remains the desert waste, — 
Nor tears, nor blood, nor prayers recall the last. 

Awake, awake! Love may not sing again; 
Not every day within your spirit's ken 

You'll hear the wizard voice of Love's delight: 
O Soul! Lift up and cry *'Amen, Amen." 



[68] 
If Love Were All 

If love were all, the way were fair. 

Love reads its own by surest signs; 

But life slips in between the lines 
Its elegies of carp and care. 

Comes policy with narrowed eye, 

And Friendship masked in Duty's smile; 

Their sophistries the heart beguile. 
O Love be brave; the world defy! 

song of love — the sky-lark's call! 
O light that pales the morning star, 
And makes a heaven look dim and far! 

halcyon days, — if love were all. 



[69] 

Love Is Dead 

A form across my threshold lies; 
The light has fled from its dull eyes; 
Is that what means this pulse of pain? 
That Love, by its own hand, lies slain,— 
The only way Love ever dies. 



[70] 

Dead Love 

Of all that 's cold in Arctic skies, 
Of all that's dead in mother-earth, 
There 's naught so cold as love that dies ; 
Nor dead as love that once had birth. 



[71] 

Truth 

''What then is truth?" 'Twas Pilate's jeer, 
This greatest question of all time. 
And centuries would pause to hear 
The answer to the Roman's sneer, 
This greatest question of all time. 



[72] 

Truth 

A jewel hidden in the depths, 

A star adrift in space : 
Then laugh the gods that mortal man 

Should think to know his place. 



[73] 

Vita Brevis 

Unless as part of some great thought, 

Why struggle on ? 

Our single roles are far too short ; 

And life is done, 

Work just begun. 



[74] 
Love's Divination 

For love alone must conquer doubt 

Reason in vain may flout 

Her cause, effect and sequence fine; 

Our hearts the voice must hear, 

And only love's own ear 

Truth's finest cadence may divine. 



V 
[75] 

De Profundis 

My Soul ! 

Can this as truth abide, 

That in the light which beamed 

From riven tomb and manger-altar side 

I have but dreamed ? 

Alas! 

Was there no Holy Child 

In Bethlehem's stable born? 

No sacrifice on Calvary's dark hillside, 

Nor Easter morn? 

Awake ! 

God of our fathers, speak; 

Savior long-promised, come ! 

Where shall we find the truth our spirits seek. 

If thou art dumb? 

Behold ! 

Nature flows on apace, 

Unchanged and undisturbed; 

Science reveals each year a nobler grace; 

From Thee, no word. 

A-faint! 

We stagger towards the end; 

A close-locked door we meet; 

''Father," we call Thee, but we find no friend. 

wanderino- feet ! 



[76 



Woe ! Woe ! 

Passed is the faith of yore ; 

Our graves yawn very nigh ; 

And like the millions who have loved before, 

We only die. 



[77] 

The Gift 

Because I cannot speak the word 

The greatest human lips have known; 

Because my ear may not have heard 
The mightiest of God's thunder-tone; 

Because I could not probe the heart 
To depths which God alone should see, 

I have despised the humbler part 
With which the Master trusted me. 

bastard gifts of unknown birth! 

soul that cannot read the skies ! 
Avaunt thy offerings, little worth! 
Deaf ears accursed and blinded eyes! 



[78] 

Sleep 

To sleep ! To float upon a dreamless wave ! 
To feel the wind-swept senses softly close 
Their portals from the currents of the day ! 
Delicious languor of the drooping lids ! 
A healing darkness on the aching eyes, 
"When sounds become but dying cadences 
Which murmur into wooing silences; 
The soft sweet wonder of f orgetfulness 
That creeps with its narcotic on each nerve: 
Then slips the soul her anchor from all thought 
On each receding tide of consciousness, 
She drifts away upon oblivion's sea. 
Far out to calm upon the ocean's night. 



[79] 

Peace 

Peace? Is it the dull 

Low ache that follows in the lull 

Of pain? Is it the sob 

Of waning senses Avhen the startled throb 

Of passion's pulse has passed? Is it the glow 

Of sorrow's aftermath? Or j^et the slow 

Benumbing torpor of too satisfied desire? 

Or is it hearth-stone vesper by the fire? 

Is it the Autumn fruitage, or the thrill 
Of promise in the opening bud of Spring? 
Is it the folded or the spreading wing? 
Or is it yet the pliant will 
To suffer and be still? 

Nay, it is none of these, I know. 

What is it thus I seek, turned to and fro ? 

It flees me like the holy grail 

That vanished over hill and mere and vale. 

And faint as hymning of the angel forms which bore 

That jewel-cup forever on before. 

There comes a voice: '^Let wandering cease; 

In thine own place, thy soul shall find its peace. ' ' 



[80] 

Easter 

O soul, be still! Scourge not thyself with doubt. 

Tear not thy little life about 

With fever of a baffling quest 

For what the angels seek, thou temporary guest. 

Even as thou, the primal man was dumb 
When from dead husks he saw new beauty come, 
And when from nerveless grubby things. 
The while he looked, bright crumpled wings 
Burst forth in haste to meet the sun. Not thou 
To-day hast more with thy demanding brow 
Of this earth-mystery of life from death, — 
This master-question of creation's breath. 
When out of seeming death unfold 
New lives more fair than were the old. 

Go read the life-bloom scattered wide 

On hill and field at Easter-tide. 

From death comes life, the wonder-promise spread 

For man before he had his stranger-being read. 

And when my heart is with the silent band. 
And thou for mine shalt lift another hand, 
Thou '11 see new roses from each winter dead 
In garlands wreathed about some maiden's head. 
Their petals tinted from the petals shed. 

Each Spring-time answers to thy riddle-making strife, 
"Recurrent resurrection is eternal life." 



[81] 
The Call 

And God said "Come"; and all 

The rose leaves fell to earth, 
And sorrow's smothering pall 

Hushed every sound of mirth; 

Then the stars went out by night, 
And the sun grew dim by day. 

For the souls that I loved, from my sight 
Had fled away and away. 

In the realm where I may not follow — 
Though I stand on the border land — 

They're safe in the sacred hollow 
Of His dear overshadowing hand. 

But as they passed on they threw me 
A smile so aglow with heaven's light, 

That from my despair it might woo me 
And glorify all my night. 

Though I walk through strange dark places 
While I wait for the coming day, 

I know that their radiant faces 
Are not so far away, 

For I feel the effulgent glory 

Of that smile when I watch in the night, 
Like a benison pure and holy 

Turning all my gloom to light. 



[82] 

Transition 

lay again thy hand in mine, 
The day is done; 

say again all joys divine 

And earthly from my eyelids shine. 
The sands are run. 

1 see the gleam of some far land 

Where bright ones dwell; 
Like presence of that angel-band, 
I hear thy voice and feel thy hand. 

Dear heart, farewell. 

Love will not die bnt grow more fair 

When earth is gone,- 
As I pass hence, I know not where. 
Speak on dear voice through ambient air 
And be one tone familiar there. 

Dear voice, speak on. 



[83] 

Stabat Mater 

Thou Mournful Mother, standing by the cross with 

eyes uplift 
Where thy stricken Son was hanging when doubt's 

sword thine own heart rift ! 

Vain man's cry of Stabat Mater, wailing down the 

mournful years, 
To rehearse thy living anguish and the meaning of 

thy tears; 

If on earth one knew thy woe, some mother like 

thyself 'twould be, 
Wrung by pangs for which 'twere vain to seek words ' 

idle pageantry. 

Such with pain transfixed stand as thou beside the 

struggling clay, 
Dumb and lifting helpless hands in heritage of 

Eden's day. 

And to these thou showest near the might of thy 

stupendous pain — 
Woe supremest save the cry that rent the temple's 

veil in twain. 

Such alone the fiery baptism which may give thy grief 

to know, 
Thou who art the ideal Mother sacred to earth's 

holiest woe. 



[84] 



Lovely type of purest sorrow! Solitude thy fitting 

shrine, 
For the giddy world has nothing for an anguish such 

as thine. 

And thy face with woe transfigured tells from altars 

grand or rude, 
How a mother's pain may be a soul's sublime 

beatitude. 



[85] 

The Mater Pia 

Softly the fading moon dies in the sky; 
Softly sigh night winds their sweet lullaby ; 
Star-eyes of angels are watching with me — 
Lullaby, lullaby, God is with thee. 

Babe, a tear-drop in thy sleep ! 

Israel's wayward, lagging feet! 
Why linger thy Messiah to greet? 

Kachel, do mothers always weep? 

What mean this transport and this pain? 
God of my sires, across my sight 
A vision drifts of storm and light, — 

A flaming crown, a victim slain. 

Sleep on, sweet Babe; awhile to me 
Is given to hush thy human cry ; 

1 worship with the lullaby. 
And give the reverent breast to thee. 

Softly the fading moon dies in the sky; 
Softly sigh night winds their sweet lullaby; 
Star-eyes of angels are watching with me,— 
Lullaby, lullaby, God is with thee. 



[86] 

The First Christmas 

Mary, drooping by the door 
Which closed before thy weary feet, 
Fainting upon the court-yard's crowded floor, 
"We see thee patient, sweet. 

Patient and sweet ; no murmur falls 
From lips that curve with coming pain, 
For angel voices in the cattle-stalls 
Thy flagging strength sustain. 

wondrous night! love divine! 
star that startled Eastern skies ! 
glory of the manger-temple's shrine. 
Earth's rapture and surprise! 

Mother, hailed the blessed maid! 
Did'st hear between thy smiles and tears, 
When first within thine arms the Babe was laid, 
The songs of grateful years? 

We speak thy name v^dth loving praise, 
And thy Magnificat shall ring 
Till thee we meet, at ending of the days. 
Before thy Son, the King. 



[87] 

Love Is Saved 

What you most loved but could not save 
You will not find with watching by a grave, 
For that great love your being craved, 
God had already saved. 



[88] 

Farther Shores 

Their ships sailed on — sailed on; was left 

My bark to struggle with the storm; 
And of their beckoning smiles bereft, 

I sat till twilight wrapped my form. 
And still I sail and sail 'mid stress 

Of seas and change of day and night ; 
Though tossed upon the waves' distress, 

Somehow I glide into the light. 

I know not how the skies grow clear, 

Nor do I see the guiding hand, 
As 'midst the changing floods I steer. 

My eyes upon a distant band 
Of light that shows a nearing shore. 

I think it is the gleam of day. 
Where they await me evermore 

Wliose ships sailed on and far away. 



[89] 

In Bondage 

Better than I thou Lord dost know 
The heart beneath this crust of earth, 
The trammels of the fleshly birth, 
The clay which crowds and binds us so. 

This strong-weak body from my soul 
Importunate its will demands; 
And scarce the service of my hands 
Can its infirmities control. 

Thou knowest all the winged thought 
Which panting, bound, would fly to Thee. 
Accept the worship that would be. 
And which in wishing, still is wrought. 



[90] 

The Waiting Note* 

In the full celestial chorus 

Lacks one strain that waits for me, 
Note of that immortal measure 

From earth's death-note ever free. 
May I with my heart's own spirit 

Catch that harmony divine; 
Strike the chord with tone unerring, 

Knowing it as only mine. 

Mine with not a broken cadence; 

Mine for God's eternal chime, 
Keyed to heavenly diapason 

When the worlds He swung in time ; 
In majestic majors swelling, 

Mine where men and angels meet. 
And the spheres in grand crescendo 

Lay their worship at His feet. 



•Dedicated to President Susan L. Mills of Mills College 
and sung by the surpliced choir of young lady students at 
the celebration of her eighty-fifth birthday. 



[91] 

A Rustic Bridge 

A rustic bridge; the copse at dawn 
Adrip with sweetness of the night; 
From out the reaches of the lawn, 
A lark rose up beyond my sight. 
The air was quivering with his song's wild lay 
That shook and sparkled in the sunbeam's ray. 



I hear across the chasmed years 
The buoyance of that song to-day; 
Hast thou the note dispelling tears, 
To leave when thou art far away? 

Yea soul, love's word can thrill from planets far; 

God's love can ring from star to utmost star. 



[92] 

Vespers 

Though I be old, alone and dying fast, 
Weary of limb, infirm of step and slow, 
Before my darkened eyes fair visions go : 

Just now I heard the angels as they passed. 

Thou eager Soul, canst bear with lagging Death 
For yet awhile, as Day endures the Night? 
Keep clear thy vision for the inner sight. 

And our new form shall have immortal breath. 

I feel thee flutter with the life to be, 

O Soul, as thou would 'st try thy fledging wings. 

Be still ! Hush thou thine ear for farther things ! 
Not long this fading form will hinder thee. 



[93] 

L' Envoi 

Deep heart of love where never sound is heard, 
Beneath the wash and wave of any word, 
From out our vision shut the earthly day 
And we shall see God's ocean gardens sway, — 

Fair lives cut off in promise of their flower; 

Beauty in bud; manhood despoiled of power; 
And there, into immortal beauty grown. 
Loves which on earth were but in shadow thrown. 



The Jongleur's Pranks 



[97] 

Yankee Doodle Up-to-Date* 

I. 

Old Spain took Cuba by the hair 
And fearfully abused her; 
Said Uncle Sam, "Hold on, my Dons, 
Too long you have mis-used her." 

Yankee Doodle help her out, 

Yankee Doodle Dandy, 
''As friendly neighbors don't you think 
Free Cubans would be handy?" 

When Dons blew up the Yankee Maine, 
Said Uncle Sam, ''I swear it. 
My boys shall clear that Spanish main ; 
Let him object who dare it." 

Yankee Doodle, seize their ships, 

Yankee Doodle Dandy, 
''Before our reckoning's done they'll find 
It is no school-boy pandy." 

n. 

Then arm in arm, our Uncle sailed 
With Dewey round Manila, 
Said he, "Now, Dewey, tell me where 
Is Spain's renowned flotilla?" 

Yankee Doodle shell 'em out, 

Yankee Doodle Dandy, 
"You sunk 'em? sho ! you must have found 
That harbor bottom handy." 



*Written to be sung- at entertainments given in the camps 
of volunteers around San Francisco. The boys in blue joined 
in the chorus, which accounts for the frequent refrain. Writ- 
ten piecemeal as the war progressed. 



[98] 



Said he, ''Now, Dewey, keep your hold 
While I run home a minute, 
I'll send you loads of soldier boys. 
They're dyin' to be in it." 

Yankee Doodle hurry up, 

Yankee Doodle Dandy, 
''For Dons and Aguinaldo's tribes 
My blue coats will come handy." 

III. 

Then Schley went hunting Spanish ships 
Around that ocean-lodgin ' ; 
Said Uncle then, "I think you'll find 
Them occupied in dodgin ' ! " 

Yankee Doodle hunt them out, 

Yankee Doodle Dandy; 
"They'll bob up here and bob up there, 
At bobbin' they are handy." 

"We bottled up Cervera's fleet," 
Said Uncle Sam to Hobson, 
"We'll find a higher place for you 
You've done a clever job. Son." 

Yankee Doodle sink the ship, 

Yankee Doodle Dandy, 
"For shutting up the harbor mouth 
The Merrimac proved handy." 

Said Sampson to the Spanish Don, 
"Why don't you come and fight, Sir?" 



[99] 



''Caramba," said that high Senor, 
''You've shut me up too tight, Sir." 

Yankee Doodle fire away, 

Yankee Doodle Dandy, 
* ' We '11 stop the guns and hold the fort, 
No more brave words we '11 bandy. ' ' 

When shot were the Yirginius' men, 
'Twas Santiago did it; 
Our boys have settled that old score 
Just with the town that bid it. 

Yankee Doodle pay your debts, 

Yankee Doodle Dandy, 
At Caney and at San Juan ridge. 
Rough Rider lads were handy. 

IV. 

When Miles to Porto Rico went. 
He climbed right up and took it ; 
The natives cried "Dear Uncle Sam, 
We're good though we don't look it." 

Yankee Doodle — what a brood ! 

Yankee Doodle Dandy, 
Said Uncle Sam, ' ' These new possess 
Look just like 'lasses candy." 

Then he from Porto Rican hills 
Reviewed the situation; 
He frowned and puzzled on the job 
Of foreign occupation. 



[100] 



Yankee Doodle thought a while, 

Yankee Doodle Dandy. 
Said he, all pensive-like and bland. 
And stroked his chin so handy, 

*'I hear that sweets are not held good 
For Uncle Sam 's digestion ; 
You're wrong, my boys, you'll see me thrive 
On that Hawaiian question." 

Yankee Doodle hoist the flag, 

Yankee Doodle Dandy, 
*'Now don't forget, your Uncle Sam 
Is fond of sugar candy." 

^'Now Dewey's finished up the job. 
Just what he undertook to; 
I think I'll put him at the head. 
He's pretty safe to hook to." 

Yankee Doodle keep your grip, 

Yankee Doodle Dandy, 
' ' We won 't go back on Dewey 's prize ; 
My Dewey is a dandy. ' ' 

''Now Miles," said he, ''Let's count 'em up; 
Here's Cuba'n Porto Rico; 
Hawaii in the other pond, 
Ladrones and Philippino." 

Yankee Doodle keep your head, 

Yankee Doodle Dandy, 
"For stepping stones around the world, 
Those islands will come handy." 



[101] 

Unc' Rastus to Marse Dewey 

My Dear Mars Dewey: We sutney is please 

Ter heah yo's a-ridin' de hom'ard seas, 

But I laid off ter give yo' a wud in yer year, 

Fer I's feared yo's gwine ter hev trouble right here. 

'Twus jes' ter say dis — when yo' comes f'm de Souf, 

Wharev'r yo' goes, don't open yer mouf, 

Fer talkin' too much's ben de cuss an' de bane 

0' de heroes what comes f'm de conq'rin' o' Spain. 

Dey tole secret t'ings Marse Kaiser denied. 
With strong sinervations dat somebody lied; 
Dey writ de long letters chuck full o' advice, 
'Bout pussons in hammocks what et up de ice; 
'Bout de quarters an' rations — dat '' roun '-robin " 
game. 

Den de dinners! Lord! de battles o' Spain 
Wan't a circumstance 't all when't come ter 

champagne ; 
De fumes was wus dan de smell o' de powder, 
An' dat big twel'-inch, he don' talk no louder; 
Dar's all kin' o' enemies hid in dat wine, 
Dey's thicker dan guns in de firin' line. 
So twar quoilin' an' fussin' in 'spisable ways. 
All aimin' ter git de bulk o' de praise 
Away f'm de turr, like dey's chickens dat foun' 
Dar wou'n't be wurrum ernuff ter go roun'. 
But spite o' it all we hed a gre't fight, 
Dis country, she's leadin' ter lef an' ter right; 
Hit don't mek no diffence on' Ian' er on sea. 



[102 



Dat's a sho' 'nuff fac' when yo' b 'longs ter de free; 
De blue er de grey, de black er de white, 
Dey's all kin-folks when Ole Glory's in sight. 

If I's brash in persumin' ter speak out so bole. 
It's 'case I's preacher an' toler'ble ole. 
But we sees right smart' hin' de gent 'men's chairs, 
An' I jes 'lowed ter give yo' a hint ter bewares. 

Dey'll mek percessions ter tote yo' roun' 

Wid jubilee fixin's in ebery town, 

Twel de row's es loud es a big camp meetin'. 

An' yo's natchelly 'bleeged ter git shet o' dat 

treat in'. 
I tek noticement how yo's refused so far, 
But sometime de home-comin's de tug-o '-de-war. 

So don't tek no 'fense at de 'marks o' a friend 

Wot's bragged on yer doins f'm b'ginnin' ter end; 

Yo's leadin' de row, yo's top o' de pot, 

Yo's de onliest Admur'l we all's got. 

An' we wants yo' ter stay at de head o' de winners. 

Dat 's huccome we say : ' ' Fight shy o ' dem dinners. ' ' 

So dear Marse George, when yo comes f'm de Souf, 

Wharev'r yo' goes, don't open yer mouf, 

Fer talkin' too much's ben de cuss an' de bane 

0' de heroes what comes f'm de conq'rin' o' Spain. 



[103] 
The Lady Reconciled 

A lady and a tiger held 

The birthright of an ancient feud ; 
Said he, ' ' Pray let our wrath be quelled ; 

Fair dame, I fear I've been too rude. 

"In future peace let us abide; 

In pledge, let's forth our friends to greet; 
Behold my shining, fulvous hide; 

You'll find my back a pleasant seat." 

When they came back from that rash ride, 
The tiger wore his blandest smile. 

Quoth he, ''The lady rides inside; 
'Tis thus our foes we reconcile." 

If Science offer subtle schemes. 

My faith, be not too soon beguiled ; 

Strange friendships may be tempting dreams; 
Beware the lady reconciled. 



[104] 

An Old Bachelor 

love is a jade of a wayward life; 

Sometimes she is gone at the whiff of a breath; 
Again she survives the most savage strife; 

Then often she scoffs in the face of death. 

Sometimes she will fight at the drop of the hat; 

And then she will take your cuffs and blows 
As tame as a household tabby-cat, 

And likes to be led by a string in her nose. 

Sometimes at the turn of hand, she is dead; 

Again at your tears she will laughingly flout. 
She's enough to drive a man out of his head; 

As for me, I will not have the creature about. 



[105] 

A Spinster 

Why have you come, love, so near, 

Come but to pass me by ? 
I sought you not but found you here ; 

Turn hence your trifling eye. 

And in your vagrant wandering. 
Pray take some other path; 

Your talk — it is but maundering 
To rouse contempt and wrath. 

Forever on some changing quest, 
With manners quite too gay, 

You are a fickle-minded guest. 

What's that? You've come to stay? 

I don't believe a word you say; 

You said the same another day; 
I know your tricks : go way ; go way ; 

Wlienever did you come to stay? 



[106] 

My Soul and I 

''Whj^ don't I die and set you free?" 
You saucy Soul, don't talk to me; 
I am not half so old as you 
Who saw the Pharaoh beat the Jew. 

You helped to build a pyramid; 
Once in a Brahmin you were hid; 
I know because you whispered me 
How sweet the Hindoo maids could be. 

For Babylon you sometimes weep 
AVhen I am tossing in my sleep ; 
If of Iran I make a verse, 
You Zoroaster's lines rehearse. 

Please don't forget that Chinese queue, 
Though worn upon a throne 'tis true; 
And next, as one of Canton's girls. 
You made the tea for sampan churls. 

You were a Turkish red-fez man. 
You babble still of Hafed's khan; 
I stood within blind Nydia's door; 
Quoth you, "I've seen this house before.' 

When the old Britons placed the rood, 
You with the ensigned Romans stood; 
Though you became her queen by right, 
I found you worn and weary quite. 



[107 



You've been worse off; more civil speak, 
Since you are such a varied freak. 
I have not kept you near so long 
As that black slave of Intermong. 

You've tried the old world's worst and best, 
And thought it better to come west: 
Then you were very glad to find 
My infant form just to your mind. 

The west has set the whole world-pace; 
You're still in time to join the race: 
A new sensation you will note, 
You soon will cast a woman's vote. 



[108] 

A Grizzly in the Zoo 

A shame to your kin, you good-natured bear, 
You show no regrets for your lost mountain lair. 
At play in the cage of your traveling zoo 
"With the child who throws peanuts and apples at you ! 

The lion is wroth and the tiger is sly, 
But you eat, and twinkle your small black eye ; 
From the top of your pole you look down as if man 
"Were a brother who does what a brother can. 

Do you never dream of Sierra's height 
Where your comrades hunt on the trail all night? 
Do you think such hide and muscles were meant 
To accept a pampered and slavish content? 

Resistance that fails is better by far 
Than submission that fondles its cage and its bar. 
Break some fetter that binds; go tear up the earth, 
And show yourself worthy your savage birth. 

The tiger's snarl and the lion's roar. 
That pierce unavailing their iron door. 
Less ignoble seem than the pitiful play 
Of the mighty paw that was meant to slay. 



[ 109 ] 

A Bilious Day 

One day I stalked, when Fate had balked 

And things were in a fix, 
With brows of gloom and thoughts of the tomb, 

On the shores of the river Styx. 

*'I'm dead," said I; "No more I'll try 

This hateful race to win; 
So Charon, dear, your boat bring here 

And kindly take me in." 

Contemptuously he said to me, 

With eyes askance the while, 
"A healthy ghost! Back to your post, 

A potion take for bile." 

The advice was good and it has stood 

The test of many a friend ; 
And so for you when you are blue. 

The same I'll recommend. 



[110] 

Triolet 

How dared he do it, 
To kiss those girls ! 
But he will rue it ; 
How dared he do it ! 
Fate led him to it 
With smiles and curls 
How dared he do it, 
To kiss those girls! 



[Ill] 

Rondeau 

O Jack, don't tease me every day, 
Go talk to Grace or Nell or May; 
"Why, every time I tell you nay, 
It only makes you still more bold 
As if you never had been told. 

Dear heart ! That little word I pray, — 
The word which never can grow old. 
Makes darkness bright and sorrow gay, 
For which a world is gladly sold, 

That little word, "1 love". 

That word is but an idle play, 

Or else another name for gold. 

The changes on that word you've rolled 

Till tired of being so cajoled ; 

I've only one thing left to say, — 

That little word, "I love". 



[112] 

Why? 

What makes you ask Don Cupid ''Why?' 
And what did you get for a saucy reply 
But another arrow straight in the eye? 
So never ask the little god ''Why?" 
For Love never knows the reason why. 



[113] 

The Discarded Lover 

love is illusion and passion a snare; 

Of the promise they make you, beware, beware; 
They'll put up a job to break your heart; 
If you would have peace, with them you must part. 



[114] 
The Mess of It 

The gods made a sorry old mess of it — 

The results we can't even guess of it — 

When the caldron they mixed for the young world's 

youth ; 
The joy and the sorrow they cast indiscriminate, 
The false from the true they did not eliminate, 
But left man to add love as the test of the truth. 



[ 115 ] 
Progressive Love 

Who says that a second is not as good? 

That a third should never be had? 
Let him try a fourth in an Alpine hood; 

And a fifth is not half bad. 

Then here's to the latest; there'll be no last, 
Till Death cries ''Ho, you're mine;" 

Love's eternal youth has no future or past. 
And its present is fire divine. 



[116] 

The Call of Science 

He Speaks: 

' ' My girl, ' ' quoth he, ' ' I feel each cell 
Of all my being towards you swell ; 
These cells, you know, make up the tissue 
That vibrates with each latest issue. 

"That vital energy which fills 

These cells, gives strange and wondrous thrills ; 

This energy is said to be 

The substance of the graces three. 

' ' This energy — life universal 
Condensed from nothing — has rehearsal 
In concrete lives, by heat electric, 
In waves invisible but hectic. 

''That your vibrations harmonize 
With mine, I read in violet eyes ; 
Color and light are nature's rhythm; 
Sphere-music old is scarcely with 'em. 

''To think, your atoms charged have whirled 
Through space until the insensate world. 
Condensed, such treasure could receive! 
Aeons lost we can't retrieve! 

' ' And only now I find you here ; 
So young, so old, so ever dear; 
But still I always felt you coming. 
Through galaxies of stars a-humming." 



[117] 



She Speaks: 

''Yes, dear, I've had my share of trouble. 
Working through world-dust full of rubble ; 
'Gainst Mars and many moons a-bumping ; 
At last upon this globe down-plumping. 

''Through all I felt your vital force 
That drew me to its nearing source ; 
I knew this involuting notion, 
Condensed by vibratory motion, 

'^ Concentrates in the heart's fine cells 
Till they become emotion's wells. 
Then evolution's working power 
Develops lives of perfect flower. 

"Our lives concentric thus shall fill 
Thought-pulses of the rhythmic will." 
He caught her in his arms' vibrations, 
All wrapped in tangled concentrations. 

Like wires in spiral circles bound; 
Then, lines of least resistance found, 
In scarlet lips evolved the blisses 
Of true magno-electric kisses. 

Rejoice, Dan Cupid! you're not in it, 
For science changes every minute; 
Nature unwound her spiral force; 
Currents reversed for their divorce. 



[118] 

Psychology Five 

Adapted from the French of Baunis 

''Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean, 
Tears from the depths of some divine despair." 

Alfred Tennyson. 

No more of despair you poets; 

We are farther than that to-day. 
Your tears do but flush the nerve-centers 

And wash the debris away. 

When you're hurt in the heart as you call it, 
The vessels engorge with blood, 

And the nerves make a poison deposit 
Which is carried away by the flood 

Of tears, w^hich lovers and poets 
Have wrought into idyls of song; 

But these tears as peripheral action 
To Psychology Five belong. 

And your tears no longer are "idle"; 

They're a part of economy's wealth; 
"This stock-theme of lyrics," says science, 

"Only means sanitation and health." 



[119] 

A Pre-Adamite on Evolution 

An aged king of gorillas sat 

By the side of his wrinkled spouse; 
Beneath a drooping banana tree 

They renewed his birth-day vows. 

Quoth he, while a bunch of the fruit he plucked 

To lay at her royal feet; 
"To burden this day with forebodings of state, 

I know that it is not meet; 

''But my heart is sore for the future youth, 

For our tribe and the very race. 
A nation's weakness approaches fast 

In the changes of form and face. 

''Of seven full generations now 

Patriarchal chief am I. 
Not a son has the strength his father had ; 

They carry their heads too high. 

"There goes our cousin Chimpanzee, the knave; 

Ignominious shelter he makes, 
To hide himself from the foe and the storm, 

With a shelter of brushes and brakes. 

"0 degenerate sons of the future gorilla. 
Can you hurl great rocks at the foe ; 

Can you lash them with trees ? Can you frighten the 
beasts 
With a voice they have learned to know?" 



[120] 



And he beat his great breast with concussion 
profound, 
At his people's evolving disgrace; 
But his queen held her peace till his wrath should 
abate ; 
This dame knew her proper place. 

''Does my lord forget," she ventured at last, 

"When he came a-courting of me, 
That I was more fair than my mother had been, — 

He deemed it most good to see? 

''And the fathers find nothing more worthy to-day 

In the stories of ancient wives, 
Than the deed of a modern gorilla maid 

Whose tact saved a hundred lives. 

"Has your highness a stride less majestic and firm 
Than his sires w^ho went on all four? 

And we lack not the berries and betel nuts 
Though we swing in the tree tops no more. 

"And recall how our foes have been vanquished 
By the traps our children designed; 

Perhaps Nature may reach compensation at last 
In a race of a subtler mind." 

But he shook his grey head in a muttering storm: 

"Such degeneration will bring ■ 
The noble race of Gorillas ere long 

To a pale-faced naked thing. 



121 



**A creature so weak and enfeebled he'll be 

That in two generations he's old; 
His short arms may drop off altogether, I fear, 

Like the tails of which we are told. 

*'A weakling, short-armed and bald-headed forsooth! 

Afraid of the cold and the heat! 
When the mermaids at twilight are singing their 
psalms, 

He'll do for the shore's front seat. 

*'Ha! The females of that generation!" He roared 

Again, as if struck with new woes: 
"Will they stalk through the forest, unblushing and 
bold? 

Who'll marry such creatures as those!" 

''Perhaps," said his listening target again, 

"Those fair Gorillitas might twine 
For their shivering bodies some cover of grace 

With the leaves of the clinging vine. 

' ' And then there 's the plaintain, and fig leaf so broad, 
And the frond-bordered fern and the brake." 

Thus early did instincts Parisian appear 
The masculine scorn to awake. 

"A female in plantains and fig leaves beswaddled. 
And tied round with twisted sticks ! ' ' 

Sneered her lord. "Have you, my dear Madam, I 
pray, 
Been trying such ladylike tricks?" 



[122] 



''My tribe in banana leaves bandaged and hid, 
Whose arms scarce hold their own weight, 

And sleeping in shelter of rushes and ferns, — 
Call you this a higher estate? 

"Don't tell me of better conditions again; 

I'm sick of this twaddle, quite! 
I say if this fad of evolving goes on 

Our race will be out of sight. ' ' 

He had asked for his lady's opinion, 'tis true; 

Then scornfully threw it away; 
But the world has evolved to such blessed estate, 

That the male never does so to-day. 

But this king, undeveloped and crude of mind. 

Into fury had lashed his wrath; 
And he crashed through the forest despoiling at will 

Every helpless thing in his path. 

His queen, whose inherited kingdom he ruled. 
To the shade of their household tree, 

On her back bore the nuts and banana-branch; 
Nor dreamed that her kind could be free. 



[ 123 ] 
Concerning Hoes 

You've heard of that over-worked man with the hoe, 
Whom lords and rulers conspire to rob; 
Who's supposed to concentrate all human woe 
And stand to the world, for the lot, in one job. 

This idealized victim of possible wrong! 
Perhaps his griefs are humanity's fad; 
A good hoe is a theme for ethical song; 
At an every day hoe, the heart should be glad. 

From the Labor Prince with his sceptre-spade, 
To the man who can claim the LL. D., 
This life has a hoe for every grade, 
And it means — hard work as the right to be. 

''And now for my hoe," the actor-man said. 
As he took up his cue with grimace or frown. 
Quoth the author, ''This thought that's buzzing my 

head 
Will prove a good hoe to get bread and renown." 

"That hoe-man of song found an easy fame," 
Sighed the lawyer pressed with his clients' sins, 
' ' Compared to the man who would gain a name 
Where 'tis money rather than merit that wins." 

As the miner shouldered his pick and pan 
He thought of the hoe-song he heard one day, 
And he grumbled, "He hain't got it all, that man. 
He never mushed out on a tundra lay. " 



[124 



The emperor said to his friend, the king, 
"Old chap, these sceptres used to be ours; 
But these hoe-men are getting inside the ring, 
We'd better accept them as Allied Powers." 

Thus the thought had dawned, and the earth rejoiced, 
That the ox and his brother were not alone. 
And only that man had a woe to be voiced 
Who did not possess a hoe of his own. 

So hoe-men we are, both great and small. 
If we rule or serve or buy or sell. 
And the world demands but this thing of us all. 
Whenever we hoe be sure to hoe well. 

L^ Envoi 

Then, comrades, your hoes ! to your hoes and to work ! 
For the fields are broad and brief are the years ; 
And Nature has made no place for a shirk. 
Nor ripens life's harvest with penitent tears. 



DEC 20 1911 



r^^i 



One copy del. to Cat. Div. 
DEC 2r «^«* 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

'illliil ""■ 

018 378 293 9 




